By way of example, a weapon system such of this kind is disclosed in DE 197 13 192 C2. This weapon system essentially consists of a carrier vehicle that comprises a crew area and a weapon area, which is provided at the rear of the carrier vehicle, for holding at least one mortar. In this case, the mortar can be loaded with mortar shells through the muzzle of the weapon barrel.
DE 10 2004 050 218 discloses a munition magazine for large-caliber munitions.
DE 10 2004 050 215 A1 deals with a corresponding munition chain. Although this is not described in any more detail, this design could have a motor added to it, thus allowing the chain to be electrically driven.
While, in the case of known vehicle-mounted mortars, the weapon barrel can be aimed by means of drives that can be operated automatically, the loading of the weapon with mortar shells generally has to be carried out manually, as in the past. A loader (i.e., a person) is, therefore, normally provided, who not only determines the necessary number of propellant charge modules arranged on the fin structure of the mortar shell, once the target parameters have been defined, and manually removes modules that are not required, but also the loader manually programs the fuze in the case of mortar shells with a programmable fuze.
It has been generally impossible to provide a weapon area, for a vehicle mortar, this is without a crew because someone has had to manually load the mortar with suitable mortar shells. Because of the safety conditions that have to be taken into account for this manual loader (e.g., sufficient armor protection, avoidance of impermissibly high CO load and/or NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) load as well as protection against deflagration of the munition as a consequence of external influences), compact integration of the mortar in the carrier vehicle is difficult, and complete separation of the crew area from a weapon area (i.e., separating the crew from the weapon area so no crew member is in the weapon area) has been generally impossible.
The present invention is based on the object of specifying a weapon system of the type mentioned initially, in which there is no need to manually load the mortar with suitable mortar shells.